No varying tax rates by city or province in Rome II. WTF? Who thought this was a good idea?

[karamazovmm]

Some say the reason is to dumb down for casuals... but! the old total war titles had auto-management! Isn't that better?

dont remind me of that thing that never worked!

[Dunadd]

Its in the end its more realistic to have one set of global taxes than any other way and invariably it adds more difficulty.

Certainly makes the game more difficult - and annoying - and less fun to play. It is definitely not more realistic - every historical kingdom and empire varied tax rates from one city or province to another and could lower taxes in one city if a rebellion seemed possible. One tax rate for every part of a state is something associated with modern nation states from the 17th century at the earliest - and they have been much more culturally homogeneous than ancient empires, which tolerated more differences among their subjects. So it's unrealistic and historically inaccurate to have one tax rate for the entire empire for ancient empires and kingdoms.

[Antonio Luna]

Like what? Construct buildings and have armies present? That's new.

As opposed to just sliding the bar and achieving "instant" public order and also "instant" money? Yeah that's your complexity. Just slide your way and ignore anything else. Especially when your empire's gotten bigger, you can get away without managing some settlements by just sliding away. It would not be efficient and good in the long run but with sliding bars keeping away the nuisance, why bother? This time, you can't just easily produce armies to be stationed on a lot of settlements because with Rome II you need a general and there's a limit for a number of stack of armies you can field depending on the size of you empire. So what do you need to do? You need to "think" on what building to build to maximize efficiency while maintaining public order hence dealing with the root problem. I always hear people saying if you're into real complexity and management, TW is not for you but Paradox games (though I haven't played any game from them yet).

[Brusilov]

You can turn off taxes for the province if you hold the whole province.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm sure this wasn't available when the game was launched - but I may have missed it.

I have the beta installed but this was there before I did that.

I find that in-game I sometimes have to destroy buildings and replace them with ones with more public order in order to keep my provinces happy.

[crzyrndm]

You can turn off taxes for the province if you hold the whole province.

You don't need to own the entire province to use it, and yes it has been there since launch

[krisslanza]

As mentioned back on page 1, it's a simple choice of game balance. Allowing the player to tax every single settlement individually means the 'smart' player will individually set each and every city to the maximum tax allowed, and maximize profits.

By making taxes faction-wise, the player is forced into a choice: If they tax high, they risk having every new province they get rebel, as they need to work on working on the unrest. Conversely, if they set it low, they hamper their economic resources.

It's a simple, smart game balance design choice. You can't just low tax every new province, and then gouge the heck out of your old, core provinces. If you want to gouge your good cities, you'll have to risk the rebellions in your newer, or less developed provinces.

[alhoon]

Since ETW there are no settlement taxes. You set the empire's tax rate and choose to tax or not tax provinces, as with ETW, NTW, S2TW. It's been around since 2009 guys.

[NavyBee]

Since ETW there are no settlement taxes. You set the empire's tax rate and choose to tax or not tax provinces, as with ETW, NTW, S2TW. It's been around since 2009 guys.

Until S2TW it was easier to use "martial law", e.g. raise some large, cheap (i.e. maintenance < tax gains) armies for garrison duty and second-rate tasks such as putting down rebellions. The (army+general) limit in R2TW works effectively against this strategy.
In RTW, maintaining some second-rate armies was also useful to let the family members start their cursus honorum. Well, now that the family tree has also gone...

[chris10]

There were quite a few very questionable decisions in the gameplay design to say at least.
This "streamlining" and thinning out of strategy, immersive and empire management features is a deplorable decline in
the entire fanchise which reached yet another zenith with Rome 2.
On top of that the biggest part of the map has this terrain design which creates some sort of tunnels who connect
citys to each other which converts big part of the map into a linear game. No strategy whatsoever except by filling
these tunnels with an army to block AI movement with zone of control...
thats probaly why the AI always comes from the seaside...it has not enoguh options to approach enemy settlements..thats utterly ridicolous...
the RTW map was far more open and the AI could find its way to enemy settlements anyway...the only thing really lacking in RTW was that the AI did not guarded its settlements properly and that it did not carry out naval invasions into the back of the player.
Rome 2 is now officially an Arcade Title with some light streamlined strategy elements.
Iam so...well...you know what I mean.

Since ETW there are no settlement taxes. You set the empire's tax rate and choose to tax or not tax provinces, as with ETW, NTW, S2TW. It's been around since 2009 guys.

....which doesnt males it better...quite the contrary

[alhoon]

I agree with you that it doesn't make it better and I prefered the sliders. I just was not suprised at all since I've seen this 4 years ago.

[Dunadd]

Since ETW there are no settlement taxes. You set the empire's tax rate and choose to tax or not tax provinces, as with ETW, NTW, S2TW. It's been around since 2009 guys.

Don't care. Not interested. Like i said already i didn't buy or play any of those games because i'm not interested in those periods or settings. This is about Rome II compared to Rome I, not compared to games set in different historical periods. Lots of people bought Rome I and Rome and Medieval II, but not Empire or Napoleon or Shogun 2.

[Dunadd]

By making taxes faction-wise, the player is forced into a choice: If they tax high, they risk having every new province they get rebel, as they need to work on working on the unrest. Conversely, if they set it low, they hamper their economic resources.


It's a simple, smart game balance design choice. You can't just low tax every new province, and then gouge the heck out of your old, core provinces. If you want to gouge your good cities, you'll have to risk the rebellions in your newer, or less developed provinces.

Why? When historically empires could (And often did) vary their tax rates by province and by city?

And why not give players the choice of whether they want to just set an empire wide tax rate or manage each city individually? Seems to me it's just to save work for programmers (and so save money), not because it improves the game - it definitely doesn't and it's not historically accurate either.

[krisslanza]

Why? When historically empires could (And often did) vary their tax rates by province and by city?

And why not give players the choice of whether they want to just set an empire wide tax rate or manage each city individually? Seems to me it's just to save work for programmers (and so save money), not because it improves the game - it definitely doesn't and it's not historically accurate either.

Because Total War isn't a historical simulator. It's a game first and foremost, with a historical backdrop.
And giving the player's a choice immediately sets a disadvantage: those that micromanage every settlement are going to have an 'easier' time with the game, while those who do the empirewide are disadvantaged. The game isn't competitive, but it still makes a clear difference.

[nameless]

Never really bothered with the varying taxes. It was annoying because you could forget about several areas and then all of a sudden have widespread rebellion.

Since ETW I barely even touched the taxes. I always left it on normal and in RTW2 you just have dignitaries or use "edicts" to maximize profits.

With over 150 regions in this game I highly doubt anyone would be interested in going in and manually setting all of the taxes constantly.

Just because you get rid of something tedious in a game doesn't mean it's dumbing down.

Blizzard for example got rid of manual resource gathering so when the game starts all workers start going for resources immediately. There was a huge uproar on the net apparently because some vocal people stated that they preferred to do it manually because it was so rewarding and showed off skills and that to remove it was "dumbing it down"

I do see a reason with doing it provincial wide since they are grouped as such but the edicts more or less takes care of this. You only use tax edicts in areas that generates tons of taxes, bread and games for areas that have high unrest, etc.

[Killerbee]

I don't get why people are saying this game is dumbed down for the so-called "console kiddies". It's always completely unnecessary to even mention console players and they always come up with the wildest theories and most blatant stereotypes, utterly trashtalking console players as if they are some sort of tumor to their pc master gaming race. The way it's going right now on the internet, by next year console players will be blamed for the financial crisis, Tsjernobyl and Ben Affleck being cast as Batman

The funny thing is that the game is not dumbed dow, quite the contrary, it's become more varied and complex : in Rome 1 you just had to build every building. Start out with walls so people can't take over your city in 1 turn, then roads and farms for money, mines if it was available, then military buildings. City became too restless ? Build a temple or a coliseum. City even more restless and you built every helpful building there is to build ? Create peasants and lower taxes. City still revolts even though you took all precautions to avoid this (seriously what was up with that ?). Remove garrison from city, set taxes to very high. Get revolt next turn. Kill rebels, take over city, exterminate it. Suddenly people are very happy for you having killed all of their sons, brothers and fathers during the rebellion but also for destroying the entire city and slaughtering women and children alike. Oh btw, you also get 30000 denarii for it.

That was basically every stinking city in Rome 1. Oh, no wait, barbarian settlements were goddamn awful with their 10000 pop limit, (if they ever made it past the dreadful 400 pop due to high unit numbers and ridiculous pop growth - I'm looking at you Vicus Marcomanii) and laughable income, Greek settlements made you insanely rich and Egyptian lands were up to max pop in 5 turns. Now you can actually control your cities without having downright ridiculous game mechanics.

Because if you think about it, the tax per city feature is quite possibly the most unfeasible one in all of Rome1 . How would you feel if you had to pay 50% of your income in taxes, while the people in the city 30 miles on had to pay 10%. Can you just imagine how upset people would be ? Would you accept that ? Ofcourse not, and nobody would. It's goddam ridiculous and it would cause severe depopulation in one city, overpopulation in the next, massive unrest, as well as a very unstable economy. Basically everything you need for the biggest uprising you've seen since CA decided to add capture flags to land battles.

Now I am aware that exempting a province from taxes would have the same effect but exempting a province from tax is a very temporary solution, generally for recently conquered areas that are not yet really integrated in your empire, whereas the varying taxes in Rome 1 would almost always stay that way the entire game

[Dunadd]

Because Total War isn't a historical simulator. It's a game first and foremost, with a historical backdrop.

No-one asked for it to be a historical simulator. It's a game? No, really? And here was me thinking it was a 3-in-one printer. Full marks for stating the obvious. It's still meant to be a game in which you have the options ancient rulers and generals did - which included varying tax rates from one place to another.

And giving the player's a choice immediately sets a disadvantage: those that micromanage every settlement are going to have an 'easier' time with the game, while those who do the empirewide are disadvantaged. The game isn't competitive, but it still makes a clear difference.

If the game isn't competitive, then it can't make a difference and no-one can possibly be disadvantaged, so there's no reason not to give players the option of whether or not to vary tax rates by city.

The only possibility for anyone being disadvantaged would be in a multiplayer campaign - and even if you were playing one of those you could have options for a single empire wide tax rate or varying taxes by city/province which all players would have to approve.

There is no reason not to give the option for varying tax rates by city - allowing it improves the game and makes it more historically accurate - and if you don't like it you just turn it off and keep on having an empire wide single tax rate if you prefer it.

[Celt Centurion]

O.K. I accept that in Rome Total War II, there is only one tax rate for the entire faction and that it cannot be adjusted by settlement nor province as it was in RTW I. My question is, "Where is the place in the menu which tells HOW to adjust taxes for the faction?" Apparently, my taxes faction wide are too high and I'm having slave uprisings all over the place, one in both Italy AND in Carthage in the same "end turn" cycle. So now I have two huge slave armies which I need to go and defeat, the garrisons are weak, down to perhaps 10 soldiers in each unit, hardly enough to fight off a full stack slave army and I cannot even adjust the tax rate to hopefully improve public order. Could someone please let me know HOW to do this?

[johan_d]

Dont complain, its Streamlined!! yes, thats right its a streamlined game.. aka dumbed down.

[Principe Alessandro]

Tax management in Empire is a lot interesting, instead of dividing it by province it is divided by lower and upper classes and choosing who tax more or less is going to affect the wealth or the population of your province.

[Alwyn]

O.K. I accept that in Rome Total War II, there is only one tax rate for the entire faction and that it cannot be adjusted by settlement nor province as it was in RTW I. My question is, "Where is the place in the menu which tells HOW to adjust taxes for the faction?" Apparently, my taxes faction wide are too high and I'm having slave uprisings all over the place, one in both Italy AND in Carthage in the same "end turn" cycle. So now I have two huge slave armies which I need to go and defeat, the garrisons are weak, down to perhaps 10 soldiers in each unit, hardly enough to fight off a full stack slave army and I cannot even adjust the tax rate to hopefully improve public order. Could someone please let me know HOW to do this?

We adjust our tax level by selecting the Trade and Finance button (next to the campaign objectives button, on the bottom of the screen), then finding the 'Tax Level' bar and adjusting the setting.

Of course, the other option is to turn off taxes in the specific region - do you know how to do that?

If you are having slave uprisings everywhere, you might want to consider other options for maintaining public order. For example:-

- Some factions have buildings other than the obvious ones (temples and government buildings) which provide public order bonuses. Playing as the Iceni, for example, I like the 'horn maker' building which provides a public order bonus as well as an economic boost. Greek factions can build the Gymnasia in minor cities which has a similar economic and public order increase. Other factions might have similar options.

- Do you hover over the province's public order (in the bottom left hand part of the screen) to see why you are suffering from low public order, so that you can fix the problem? For example: if cultural differences are a problem in a captured region, then putting a dignitary in that region (and selecting the dignitary and clicking on the button to put them into 'active' mode) can help. This can work well, especially if we leave the agent there for a long time and if, when levelling up the agent (they level up when in 'active' mode) we select skills which increase the cultural conversion rate.

- I used to always enslave defeated enemies after battles, until I saw the effect which this had on public order after a while. If you are having slave uprising everywhere, you might want to use other options when capturing enemies after a battle.

This is one of the things I like about Rome II - something like public order or a unit's statistics can be affected by a lot of different things. For me, this makes aspects of the game more complex and challenging (rather than dumbed down). It's more complex because we can try different strategies and combine effects (such as using all of my suggestions, above, at once) or use some effects to offset others (for example, using multiple public order buildings and dignitaries to offset the public disorder caused by repeatedly enslaving defeated enemies). It's more challenging because we cannot build everything everywhere - and we cannot set tax levels at the optimum setting for each individual region. Being unable to set tax levels per region means that we have less money, which forces us to make choices such as deciding which of our armies will be given the limited number of high-tier units we can afford. Of course, different players prefer different things. Dunadd's suggestion - that we could have the option of being able to set taxes per region (and that we could turn off this option if we wanted to) looks good to me.

It's true that some things are simpler in Rome II. I see what people mean about this involving streamlining. To an extent, I like streamlining. For example: in Empire Total War, I need to click on units which have taken casualties to replenish them. This can become tedious in a large empire, constantly clicking to replenish units after fighting a lot of battles. (Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy ETW). I prefer the system used from Napoleon Total War onwards, which streamlines this by replenishing units automatically (the cost is included in the unit upkeep). Does that apply to setting tax levels for region? For me, it does - of course, I respect the fact that many people see this differently. If anything, I would like more streamlining in Rome II - levelling up agents becomes a chore in late campaign when I have a lot of them. I would prefer a simple choice of the type of each agent, when I recruit them (a scout could be an assassin or a military scout for example; a dignatory could be a civilian governor or a military administrator) and for levelling up to become automatic.